Practice Policies and Procedures

Practice Complaints Procedure

We endeavour to offer the best service to all our patients. If you feel we have fallen short please feel free to discuss this with any staff member. If the issue is not resolved to your satisfaction they will suggest you contact Karey Bennett to whom you may talk to informally discuss the problem and offer you further advice on our formal complaints procedures. If you wish to follow this please let us know as soon as possible after a problem or issue arises. If it is not possible to raise your complaint immediately, please let us have details of your complaint within the following timescales:

Within 12 months of the incident that caused the problem

OR

Within 12 months from when the complaint comes to your notice

The Practice will acknowledge your complaint within three working days.

When the practice looks into your complaint it aims to:

Ascertain the full circumstances of the complaint.

Make arrangements for you to discuss the problem with those concerned, if you would like this.

Make sure you receive an apology, where this is appropriate.

Identify what the practice can do to make sure the problem does not happen again.

COMPLAINING ON BEHALF OF SOMEONE ELSE

Please note that York Medical Group keeps strictly to the rules of medical confidentiality. If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, the practice needs to know that you have their permission to do so. A note signed by the person concerned will be required, unless they are incapable of providing this due to illness or disability.

COMPLAINING TO OTHER AUTHORITIES

The practice management team hope that if you have a problem you will use the Practice Complaints Procedure. However, if you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us, or you are dissatisfied with the response received from us, you can contact any of the following 2 bodies:

As a last resort, if you are not happy with the response from this practice, you can refer your complaint to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman who investigates complaints about the NHS in England. You can call the Ombudsman’s Complaints Helpline on 0345 015 4 033 or http://www.ombudsman.org.uk or Textphone (Minicom): 0300 061 4298

If you have a genuine concern about a staff member or regulated activity carried on by this Practice then you can contact the Care Quality Commission on 03000 616161, or alternatively visit the website: www.cqc.org.uk/contact-us

Help with other medical services

Independent Complaints and Advocacy service

ICAS is a national service that supports people who want to make a complaint about their NHS Care or treatment. Your local ICAS service can be found on the website below:

The Patient Advice Liaison service known as PALS, has been introduced to ensure that the NHS listens to patients, their relatives, carers and friends, and answers their questions and resolves their concerns as quickly as possible.

How We Use Your Health Records

Home Visits

If possible please try to telephone before 10:30. A doctor or nurse will phone you back, as it may be that your problem can be dealt with by telephone advice, or it may be more appropriate to arrange a hospital attendance.

Home visits are only available for patients who are too ill (eg terminally ill) or physically incapable of travelling to the surgery (eg a truly housebound patient for whom travel to the surgery by car would cause deterioration in their medical condition).

Our doctors typically see four patients in the practice in the time it takes to do a single home visit. For this reason, we ask our patients to come to the practice if at all possible. There are also better facilities for examining and treating patients at the surgery

You can also be visited at home by a community nurse if you are referred by your GP. You should also be visited at home by a health visitor if you have recently had a baby or if you are newly registered with a GP and have a child under five years.